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FARMER A LEGEND ON DIRT

Kenny Wallace scanned the collection of big name drivers at Eldora Speedway Wednesday night — looked right past the famous names of Petty, Labonte, Elliott and Stewart — and settled on the guy with two hearing aids, nine grandchildren, four great grandkids and over 800 feature wins.

"Red Farmer is the perfect match for this race track," Wallace said. "He's a legend and this dirt here is legendary."

Actually, Red is older than dirt.

Or, at least the Eldora dirt.

While it was surprising to see the collection of talent Tony Stewart, the new owner of Eldora, brought to the half-mile oval for his Prelude to the Dream charity race, the most amazing entry was Charles "Red" Farmer, who already was an established racer when this 51-year-old track was carved from a Darke County cornfield.

Farmer's first race was in a '34 Ford at Opa-locka Speedway outside Miami in 1946. That means he's now raced in seven different decades or, as he put it Wednesday night, "I'm the only guy racing who's collecting Social Security."

Five years ago he was named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers of all time. He was a four-time NASCAR national short track champion — the 1956 Modified champ and the 1969-71 Late Model Sportsman — and four times was voted NASCAR's Most Popular Driver.

"Now, I can finally say I raced Eldora," said Farmer, who won one of the night's 10-lap heat races and finished eighth in the feature. "I've been here as a fan, but never run here before. And that's something 'cause I've run all over the country from California to Maine to down at that old track in Key West (Stock Island Speedway), where the walls were made of cardboard. Went through them, you were in the water."

Even so, that wasn't the only place he ended up in the ocean.

"First time I raced at Daytona, they were still running on the beach there," he said. "It was 1953 and 'cause I didn't have any trailer, my mechanic and I drove my car — a '52 Hudson— up there from Miami the night before and parked on the beach.

"I slept in the back seat and woke up the next morning with six inches of water in the car. The tide had come in. Well, we dried her off and went racing."

When you hear stories like that you come back to that question again: So how old are you Red?

"I don't know, when I was born I was too young to read the birth certificate."

Red is as good bumping you off the question as he is knocking you out of the way to get the checkered flag.

One of the five halls of fame he's in lists him as 76. Eldora announcers called him 75. Over the years, he and Joan, his wife of 55 years, have said he's younger than that.

Listening to Farmer, then looking at the drivers sitting next to him before the race, Stewart laughed: "Well Kyle Petty's 45 and if you add in the other two (Dave Blaney and Kevin Harvick), Red's still older than the three of 'em combined."

Stewart could get away with that because this was his track, his race — to benefit Kyle Petty's Victory Junction Gang Camp for critically ill children — and because he and Red are hunting and fishing buddies.

But there's more to the bond than that.There's a special connection between the young lion from Indiana and the old school racer who cut his racing teeth around Miami before becoming the anchor of the legendary Alabama Gang, which included Bobby and Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnett, Bobby's sons Davey and Clifford and Hut Strickland.

The group had great success and terrible tragedy. Bonnett, Davey and Clifford were killed in racing or race-related crashes. Bobby and Donnie had their careers ended by serious wrecks.

Red was riding with Davey when the young driver's helicopter crashed in the Talladega infield in 1993. Davey was killed. Red ended up with shattered bones and a broken heart.

Growing up next door to Red, Davey idolized him and as a little kid named his dog "Old Red Farmer." Red looked at Davey as his own son and later on worked as his crew chief, set-up man and confidant.

He tears up at mention of Davey, but when quizzed about the checkered flag ring he wore on Wednesday, he opened up:

"This ring means more to me than anything. I got it from Davey's team after he won the Daytona 500 'cause I had set up his car and test drove it." As he studied the ring, his voice faded.

Later, Stewart touched on the subject: "He looked at Davey as his son. I don't want to say I'm filling those shoes, but I think the way Red is with me is a way to get a little bit of that back that he lost with Davey."

The two go bass finishing in Alabama and Red has taught Stewart how to hunt everything from turkey and quail to deer.

"I like Tony," Red said. "I've seen a part of him a lot of people don't see. I know a lot of the good things he does. He's a firm believer in giving back to those less fortunate."

Red said after each trip down south, Stewart goes back to big-time racing with some Alabama luck and usually does well for five or six races straight.

The two are cut from the same cloth. Both appreciate grass roots racing.

"First off, I hope I live as long as Red and secondly, if I do, I hope I've got that much energy," Stewart said. "If you had to pick somebody to be like he's the guy you'd want to be."

Mike Wallace agreed: "He's an icon — a true Iron Man."

While that was evident at Eldora, it was especially true at the last race of the season at Dixie Speedway outside Birmingham in 1962.

Red was running second to Bobby Allison in the super-modified points race, when his accelerator stuck in a heat lap, he hit the wall and broke his leg.

An ambulance carted him off, but just before the feature, a pick-up truck came roaring back to the track and out hopped Red, his right leg in a red cast. He borrowed a lesser hobby car and although he didn't win, he gave Allison a run for his money.

"Wasn't gonna let something like that stop me from racing," he said Wednesday night.

And it didn't. He still races on weekends 43 years later and shows no signs of backing off the throttle.

That's why the International Motorsports Hall of Fame waived its rule last year and enshrined him.

In the past, a driver had to be retired five years before being considered for induction. In Red's case, they figured he was never going to retire.